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My palms are damp, coated with nervous flutters of excitement only… it… doesn’t work?
Poking my tongue out, I try and turn it again but the same thing that happened the first time happens again. Nothing. It won’t move.
Searching, I find Cole’s eyes—always him—confused and flabbergasted. Why isn’t it turning? It should move. It won’t open.
“Get on with it. Stop stalling,” Silas fumes.
“…She can’t,” Madison says with a low sigh. “It won’t go.”
My shocked lids meet her ever-honed ones.
“Rory was wrong, it’s not the right key. It’s not going to open.”
The way she says this. It doesn’t come off hostile like I expect it to and my already shaking knees want to collapse because of it. She’s just making the observation, zero snark.
Determination rolls off me in waves, and I want to prove her wrong, so I give it another twist. This has to be right. Too many things add up for it to be incorrect.
Again, I try and am only left disappointed. The lock doesn’t even attempt to budge.
“Let me try,” Silas says, forcing his way through. “Typical. Women need a man’s touch.”
“Touch”—Cole emphasizes, yanking him hard by the lapels before he gets the chance to get any closer to me—“her again, or evenattemptto, and you’re losing whatever part you eventhinkabouttouchingon her.”
He grins but there’s something plastic about it. It’s about as short and clipped as his tone.
“Got it?” Cole flares, slamming his father’s head back into the wall. “Are we clear, old man?”
That smile turns sinister. We’re past angry, Iceman’s raging all over again.
Even with the heap of bruises marring the one half of his face and ribs that must be screaming—terrifying as it is—he still takes my breath away.
That careful restraint he’d shown before, gone the moment Silas attempted to make a move toward me.
“Rory is more than capable of handling herself,” he grunts. Lasering in on him more than he already was.
“She needs to be shown how to be put in her place.” Silas gyrates, mimicking the same energy.
I don’t have time to do anything other than blink and both men are on the ground. A mix of fists, arms, and limbs shuffling everywhere.
Twisting, somehow Cole lands himself on top. Digging, his thighs go into Silas’s stomach, holding him in place.
It’s a toss-up who’s lost more blood by this point, it gushes the more it smears their tattered and torn clothing. Fresh and old wounds splitting back open at their jostling.
It seems like forever—but in reality, it’s probably only minutes—before anyone steps in, time slowing the longer they continue to go at it.
Both Eli and Abram step in, but with how high Cole’s rage and adrenaline are right now, it’s not enough. His pores are filled with straight titanium.
Stepping in, Sgt. Daniels becomes involved just as I make a move to try and help as well. Everything else is forgotten for yet another round of these ever-shifting goals.
He beats me, but it’s for the better. The trio of them are finally able to rip the two men apart.
Abrams in Iceman’s face, talking him down, but I doubt he’s registering any of it. His eyes are too crazed and more than partially out of focus.
His breathing is the only thing that seems to be mellowing out a fraction and even that seems like a stretch.
That is until a scream rips out, pushing past Madison’s lungs. The shrill sound as alarming as it had been that first time. Whooshing, it moves its way throughout the household yet again.
My ears ring, ricocheting, but it’s not from her wails of hysteria. This buzzing is from a different noise. A fatal, lethal sound.
